Kingdom Coolness

Over the last few years, churches have discovered coolness.

A pastor friend of mind likes to attend the cool church conferences around the country--hip, branded events with names like Q, Echo, Exponential and Orange.  Q--the ultimate coolness name--is happening right now. I saw it on my friend's Facebook page and looked at the site.  Among the presentations this year are "Justice in the Suburbs", "Ensuring Social Entrepreneur Success" and "The Spirituality of the Cell Phone".

I am all for coolness in church.  I think Jesus was incredibly cool.  It's too bad that Clint Eastwood was never given a role playing Jesus.  I can picture him, writing in the dirt, "Where's the man?", then standing up with his back to the sun, calmly eyeing the blustering Pharisees with rocks in hand for a few timeless seconds, spitting at a beetle, then another pause, and finally monotoning a raspy "He who is without sin, go ahead . . . ." 

But I'm not sure that the current focus on coolness is even close to that of Jesus, because, at least as far as I can tell from my outside vantage point, it seems more concerned with packaging Jesus in cool ways than actually being like Jesus.  Jesus was cool because he was simply genuine and unpretentious, whether letting a prostitute kiss his feet or chasing temple merchants with a whip.  The current movement seems more concerned mainly with interacting with cultural ideas and forms, both affirming and critiquing.  To be sure, I see this as a huge improvement over the church's historical tendency to either criticize or ignore most of culture outside of christendom (besides the Super Bowl), or perhaps worse, to approve or reject cultural forms based on nothing other than traditional taste.  When I was at Wheaton in the 70's, secular classical musicians were hailed in concerts at Edman Chapel while master guitarist Phil Keaggy was relegated to the gym.  In that we've come a long way.

So churches are cooler now, but is it the right kind?  Is it getting us any closer towards really making genuine disciples of all nationalities, or is it in fact simply bringing our window dressing up to date?  It's one thing to be cool because it makes for good marketing, and another because it's simply who you are, single mindedly focused on your mission. One must ask: if our focus were more on directly being like Jesus than honing our packaging, may we not only be far more cool, but far more effective?

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Showing comments 1 to 10 of 14 | Next | Last
jlarson
Posts: 1
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Heather's comment
Reply #14 on : Sun May 24, 2009, 01:09:57
That's expanding the topic a bit, Heather, but I understand the connection (and you've got me started on another post). We've noted the relevance of that point to outreach strategies here in Asia. It was missiologist George Patterson who helped me understand this point in a very practical way, and I would have to largely credit his influence for the family-oriented strategy of The Well.

Related to that, we recently had a conversation with Iven and Kashmira Hauptman (http://ivenandkashmira.info) about their new outreach to male prostitutes in Bangkok. They noted that the number one felt need among those guys was community.

I'll try to get a post on all of this soon. Thanks for bringing it up, Heather.
Last Edit: May 24, 2009, 01:11:06 by jlarson  
Heather Duncan
Posts: 11
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Re: Kingdom Coolness
Reply #13 on : Fri May 22, 2009, 17:52:51
You would love a book by Soon-Chan Rah called The Next Evangelicalism. Here is an excerpt.

The American church, in taking its cues from Western, white culture, has placed at the center of its theology and ecclesiology the primacy of the individual. The cultural captivity of the church has meant that the church is more likely to reflect the individualism of Western philosophy than the value of community found in Scripture. The individualistic philosophy that has shaped Western society, and consequently shaped the American church, reduces Christian faith to a personal, private and individual faith.


Actually you would really like Soon-Chan. He teaches at the Sem at North Park and his daughter is in Ian's class at school.
Marie
Posts: 11
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coolness
Reply #12 on : Fri May 08, 2009, 18:23:11
Good, thought-provoking questions! I agree with Bill!!
Ben Hammond
Posts: 11
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Cathedral Mentality
Reply #11 on : Thu May 07, 2009, 09:30:55
I agree that the cathedral mentality is alive and well.

I hear many people talking about created culture, and that when the church was in a position of high influence. Influence in terms of art, literature, culture, etc.

I agree that the church had that kind of influence, but something that is also coupled with that time in history is the dominance of the church. The church of that day had so many issues as well (in addition to the good things). One of the reasons that it was so influential is that (at times) it also had a great deal of "power over". There was point when there was not much freedom of expression... so obviously the church was the influencer and creator of culture. I think it would be cool to be able to influence culture in the ways of art and literature, etc, but I don't want to be associated with the same tactics. Obviously this wasn't always the way the church did it then, but "power over" is the way it retained that place in society for so long. And I'm not one to just try and get rid of the time before the reformation because I don't like it. I actually really like that time period, and there are lots of beautiful and cool things that came from that time. In some (or many) ways I like it better than what the reformation brought. But it is impossible to deny that "power over", dominance, is what kept it in it's place much of the time. -and this is (not the totality of, but) connected to the Cathedral Mentality.

I think the "power under" way of Jesus is the coolest. The way that says we change culture and "create" culture by investing in the poor (which the church that existed before the reformation did some of time, but that's not what is focused on). I think it's completely appropriate to apply the word "cool" to Jesus. Because the poor and disenfranchised people he was talking to in his teachings (sermon on the mount) loved him because of his words. They thought he was very cool. And of course we can go into all the ways that people chose to not follow him because his way was to extreme for some, but you can't argue with that the marginalized people thought he was "cool."
jlarson
Posts: 2
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Ben's comment
Reply #10 on : Sun May 03, 2009, 09:24:43
"He would say that Christ is perfect and he calls us to do everything as if it were for him, so we should make our churches/conferences/buildings/lawns/everything perfect so that people will see who he is."

The cathedral mentality is alive and well.

That reminds me of a poem by British author Steve Turner. I think another blog post is called for...
Ben
Posts: 11
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Right on
Reply #9 on : Sat May 02, 2009, 13:04:03
I think people are beginning to talk about this more and more, and I applaud you Jim for writing something that is very much right on.

Except for the stretch of 100 words where Paul says that he became all things to all men for the sake of the gospel, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anything in the scriptures that says that we're supposed to look like the rest of the world around us. The whole concept of being "relevant" so we don't look weird to the rest of our culture seems to be almost the exact opposite of the way Jesus called us to live.

Of course, as Christians, I do think we're called to do everything extremely well.... but I'm not sure that means that we're supposed to be extremely "cool".

Because of the way my company advertises, we inadvertently support all these "cool" christian conferences. Last year I had a long, good discussion with a high up guy at one of the mega conferences. After talking for an hour I think we distilled the main difference in the way we view things.

He would say that Christ is perfect and he calls us to do everything as if it were for him, so we should make our churches/conferences/buildings/lawns/everything perfect so that people will see who he is.

I would say that Christ is perfect, so let's just point people to him, regardless of the shape of our churches/conferences/buildings/lawns/whatever.

As much as I think my personal viewpoint is right, my real hope is that God is glorified by both courses of action.
Roy Bessell
Posts: 11
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Re: Kingdom Coolness
Reply #8 on : Fri May 01, 2009, 21:15:49
So, I'm guessing that Clint Eastwood is still very popular in Thailand. As a young hellion, I would have thought the characters he plays were cool. As a Christian, I do not think so. I know I had the wrong heroes in my youth.
Greg G.
Posts: 11
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Style v.s. Substance
Reply #7 on : Wed April 29, 2009, 18:39:25
If by "cool" you mean "counter-cultural", then obviously Jesus is cool in the sense that He is perfect; completely other than us, and yet His "coolness" translated to the most incredible display of love ever witnessed. This is how we are to be as His children. I want to be "cool" like Jesus.

However, if by "cool" you mean "culture-driven", then we, the Church, miss the point. I don't think Jesus cares if the Sunday sermon is in powerpoint, podcast, mp3 formated or written in pen and ink, or if the music is Southern Gospel (ugh!!), Jazz, Afro-Cuban or Celtic, the real issue is how does The Body reflect Christ in its treatment of each-other and its Mission to make much of Him in the world. If believers want to celebrate Jesus in the most techno-savvy ways, then be my guest, as long as they are living Christ among each other and making much of Him, then everything else is gravy.
Jeremy
Posts: 11
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RE: Uncool?
Reply #6 on : Wed April 29, 2009, 09:19:26
I think that the idea of "cool" is completely in the eye of the beholder. What a goth punk-rocker in logan square (chicago) views as cool is probably completely different from what an immigrant from Peru thinks even though they live in the same apartment building. So it's probably meaningless to try and decide if something or someone (including Jesus or church) is "cool".

I get the clint eastwood picture. I like that. But FWIW, that is the Jim Larson version of cool. The kids on my block probably think of lil bow wow as defining cool and I doubt they've ever seen a clint eastwood movie.

And in a way, we're back where we started, right? I mean that's the whole point of bring the gospel to people - it's about learning their culture and bringing Jesus to them. And in every culture, some parts of the gospel will draw people and other parts of it will be a "stumbling block" or "foolishness". It's only after God makes us born again that we will (or even can) fully embrace the person and work of Jesus.

And so preaching is necessary and persuasion is tactical, but prayer is fundamental.
Bill
Posts: 11
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RE: uncool?
Reply #5 on : Tue April 28, 2009, 19:04:47
Glad to help with your ratings...

It's totally a matter of perspective. Personally, I think Jesus is cool because I know him and have experienced how awesome he is.

However, based on the standards of what our world considers "cool," I don't think he'd get many votes.
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